Who isn't fascinated by sex survey findings? But in the case of the recent millennial sex survey – results revealed a shocking lack of guidance for young people over their sexual concerns.

The results from the latest National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3) showed that one in ten sexually active men (aged 16 -21-year-old) and 13% of women the same age reported a distressing sexual problem lasting three months or more in the last year.

The most common sexual problem that caused distress among men was reaching a climax too quickly (4.5%). For women, it was not having an orgasm at all (6.3%).

As a GP who runs a sexual dysfunction clinic it was disappointing, but not unexpected that just over a third (35.5%) of men and 42.3% of women reporting a problem had sought help - but rarely from professional sources.

More than 10% of young men and women said they had avoided sex because of sexual difficulties.

One of the major findings for boys was that they worried about not lasting long enough - and ejaculating too soon. And a third of them were really distressed by this. Porn and peer pressure make sexual escapades that last less than ten minutes seem embarrassingly short.

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But the numbers may surprise you. Scientists like to measure everything of course, so they've studied the average time for men to come after vaginal penetration and its 5.4 minutes in the UK. Whilst firing quickly is common in young adults, men aged between 18-30 tend to last longer than those 51 or over (6.5mins vs 4.3mins).

So it's actually quite normal to not last very long. Frankly, you might get a bit knackered and your partner may get bored. How sexually excited/turned on you are, how soon it was since you last came, whether you've had a drink, if you've had lots of foreplay already, if it's new, if you're nervous - all of these and more factors can make the difference in terms of how long you last.

It's no surprise then if you're 16 years- old with little experience and a really hot partner who you've been snogging for hours that you may well shoot pretty quickly.

There are some men, however, who will continue to shoot quickly whatever training they try from the stop-start or squeeze techniques to using a numbing spray, masturbation beforehand or thinking about your grandmother.

These men tend to have a specific issue where their brain doesn't recognise the 'point of no return' - the sensation a man learns to recognise as either needing to slow down or he'll climax. This can be trained in some as mentioned above, or a numbing spray may make you feel less sensation so you ejaculate less quickly (but your partner might go numb too so use a condom).

However, there are some men who are so distressed by it that they decide on medication and this is available - usually an antidepressant which has a side-effect of slowing down the time it takes to reach orgasm. For example, doctors may be able to prescribe dapoxetine, a licensed drug that increases the length of time to ejaculation by 2-3 times, or brother medications like sertraline which can increase it by 5 times or more.

You'd need to speak to a specialist in sexual function though to discuss these medications. They work best alongside other techniques including sexual therapy as there are sometimes psychological reasons why men come too quickly, or they've worried so much about it they avoid sex at all costs. This can be really helpful in getting your confidence back.

And just so you know - premature ejaculators tend to make excellent lovers as they recognise they don't last very long once they've penetrated so make lots of effort at foreplay and imaginative sex play before penetration. Too many people feel the insertion is the main event when actually – it's whatever connects the two of you.

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